| You can stand there on the rocks between the sea and the
forest of spruce and fir and feel, backing you up, the whole
expanse and power of this country, reaching away behind you to
the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. It's quite a sensation.
-- Louise Dickinson Rich, The Coast of Maine.
The passage through all the rocky galleries of the Pine
Tree Coast culminates at Quoddy Bay in a masterpiece.
-- Samuel Adams Drake, The Pine Tree Coast.
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Red and white candy-striped
West Quoddy Head Light is one of the most frequently depicted
American lighthouses on calendars and posters. The picturesque
lighthouse stands on the easternmost point of the United States
mainland.
In
1806, a group of concerned citizens chose West Quoddy Head as a
suitable place for a lighthouse to help mariners coming into the south
entrance to Quoddy Roads, between the mainland and Campobello Island.
According to some sources, Hopley Yeaton, an officer in the United
States Revenue Cutter Service who is regarded as the father of the
Coast Guard, played a role in the establishment of the station. Yeaton
had retired to a farm in the area and was active in local affairs.
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Congress appropriated $5000 for the light station on April
21, 1806. The contractors Beal and Thaxter built the first wooden
lighthouse on the site, along with a small dwelling, in 1808.
It was the first American lighthouse east of Penobscot Bay.
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The first keeper was Thomas Dexter, at a salary of $250 per
year. There was not enough soil near the lighthouse for a garden,
so Dexter was forced to travel a great distance to Lubec to obtain
all his food and supplies. His salary was raised in 1810 to $300.
Peter Godfrey, the second keeper, was at West Quoddy Head
from 1813 until his death at age 82 in 1839.
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Godfrey’s
job was complicated by the War of 1812, when British troops claimed
control of the light station. Just a few miles away, the British
occupied the town of Eastport for a lengthy portion of the war. An
officer promised Godfrey that the British would pay him, but the salary
was not forthcoming. The local customs inspector wrote a letter to the
U.S. lighthouse authorities on Godfrey’s behalf, as he hadn’t been paid
in several months and was “very poor” and had a “large family to
support.”
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At one time, West Quoddy Head, like Boston Light, had a fog
cannon to warn mariners away from dangerous Sail Rocks nearby.
The station received one of the nation's first fog bells in 1820.
It has been said that the Bay of Fundy is where fog is manufactured,
and the keeper at West Quoddy Head had plenty of extra work operating
the bell. Congress decided in 1827 that "the keeper of Quoddy
Head Lighthouse, in the State of Maine, shall be allowed, in
addition to his present salary, the sum of sixty dollars annually,
for ringing the bell connected with said lighthouse, from the
time he commenced ringing said bell."
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Sail Rocks with Grand Manan Island in the distance |
Over the next 17 years, four different fog bells were tried
at West Quoddy, but all of them were difficult to hear offshore.
Even an unusual 14-foot steel bar was tried in place of a bell.
The first lighthouse was so poorly constructed that it required
rebuilding by 1830. Congress appropriated $8000, and the contractor
Joseph Berry rebuilt the tower in 1831 for $2350. The new rubblestone
lighthouse, 49 feet tall, went into service on August 1, 1831.
Keeper Alfred Godfrey related some not-too-pretty details
of life at West Quoddy in 1842 to I.W. P. Lewis
for his important 1843 examination of the Lighthouse Establishment.
Godfrey wrote:
My salary is $410 [yearly]. I have a family of seven persons.
The climate here forbids the use of a garden or farm. My leisure
time is occupied in boat building. I sometimes pilot vessels
into Eastport, when no other pilot is at hand. Wrecks occur on
the Sail rock as often as once a year... The dwelling house contains
6 rooms, kitchen, parlor and 4 chambers. The house leaks all
about in rainy weather. The chimneys smoke badly . . . The tower
is built of rubble stone, badly laid. In winter, the inside of
the walls are coated with ice, from the effect of leakage . .
.
- U.S. Coast Guard photo
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The present 49-foot brick tower was erected in 1857, after
a Congressional appropriation of $15,000. The new lighthouse
received a third-order Fresnel lens. A one-and-one-half-story
Victorian keeper's house was built at the same time.
West Quoddy Head Light's famous red and white stripes appear
to have been added soon after the present tower was built. Red
stripes on lighthouses were common in Canada, where it helped
them stand out against snow. Only one other lighthouse in the
United States -- Assateague Light in Virginia -- has horizontal
red and white stripes.
In 1869, a Daboll trumpet fog whistle was installed in place
of the earlier bells. The signal was described as similar to
the blast from a steam locomotive.
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The
station was assigned an assistant keeper beginning in the 1850s.
Ephraim N. Johnson, a native of the Washington County, Maine, town of
Roque Bluffs, arrived as the assistant in 1900. When he advanced to
principal keeper in 1905, Johnson’s pay was raised from $480 to $660
yearly. Johnson’s four children, and later his
grandchildren, helped the keeper and his wife, Ada (Miller), with the
chores at the station. Gwen Wasson, Johnson’s granddaughter, recalled
some details of life at West Quoddy for an article by Ron Pesha in Lighthouse Digest:
He
felt like a very rich man. He loved it, there on the ocean, doing what
he wanted to do with his family around him. And we never lacked for
food. Grandmother kept chickens and sometimes raised pigs.
Sometimes
we went up the tower to assist polishing the brasswork. Grandfather
said that you can’t leave any finger marks, because they collect dirt.
Wasson
recalled that Johnson always wore his official Lighthouse Service hat,
even with his work clothes. The Johnsons were a well-loved family,
known for their religious devotion. On Sunday afternoons, the family
would gather around the pump organ in the parlor, with Ephraim’s deep
bass voice leading the sing-alongs.
Right: A painting of Ephraim and Ada Johnson in the interpretive center at West Quoddy Head Light. Courtesy of the West Quoddy Head Light Keepers Association. |  |
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In Down East magazine Ruth L.W. Draper recalled visiting
West Quoddy Head as a girl in the early 1900s:
The keeper of 'The Light,' Cap'n Ephie Johnson, and his
wife Ada , were pure gold... Cap'n Ephie, his bronzed kindly
face wrinkled at the eyes by many years of looking seaward, could
predict the weather with utmost accuracy. . . . He'd say laconically,
'Land loom. Weather breeder. Rain tomorrow.' We scoffed, but
sure enough the next day it would rain.
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West Quoddy Head Light c. 1900, from
the collection of Edward Rowe Snow, courtesy of Dorothy Bicknell
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- From "Stebbins Illustrated Coast
Pilot," 1902
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On one visit Ruth and a friend were awakened by the "fearsome
shrieks" of the fog horn, which proceeded to blast for 56
straight hours. The girls escaped the sound by taking walks in
the woods, where they found "masses of pitcher plants and
an occasional fringed orchid."
In an article in Down East magazine, Ephraim Johnson’s grandson Philip
Searles described a memorable day in 1929, when he was visiting with
his grandparents during a school break. During breakfast, word arrived
that a ship had gone aground about a mile south of the lighthouse in
thick fog.
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Johnson
called the local Coast Guard station, and soon
followed the assistant keeper, Eugene Larrabee, who ran down the
shoreline with a supply of rope. Arriving at the scene of the disaster,
Searles saw an enormous two-masted ship stuck in a crevice in the rocky
cliff. Larrabee and another man were able to get a line to the ship,
and the crewmen climbed one at a time onto the rocks, After the men
were safely rescued, the ship slid off the rocks, and within minutes it
was sunk out of sight except for the tips of its masts. Searles
also recalled his grandfather telling him tales of a pirate named
Gulliver, who supposedly buried treasure not far from the lighthouse.
Armed with a small shovel, young Searles dug enthusiastically at a
location known as Gulliver’s Hole, in a cove about a half-mile from the
light station. All he found was an occasional bottle or anchor chain,
but Searles never gave up his belief that pirate loot was hidden in the
vicinity. Arthur Marston was an assistant keeper in the 1920s. His
granddaughter, Jenine Marston Christensen, later recalled a
conversation she had with Marston. While on a visit to the lighthouse,
she asked him if the foghorn kept him awake. He replied, “Only when it
stops!”
The keepers’ children had to walk about two miles to
school in Lubec. One day in the 1920s, Marston’s children found some
lumber that had washed ashore. One of the boys took the lumber and
built a cabin in the woods that long served as a meeting place for
local children and was still standing into the 1990s.
Howard
“Bob” Gray was the keeper from 1934 to 1952. His father, Joseph M.
Gray, had been a keeper at Mount Desert Rock Light, Bass Harbor Head
Light, and other Maine stations. Bob Gray had the distinction of being
the last civilian keeper and the first Coast Guard keeper at West
Quoddy Head, as he joined the Coast Guard after they took over the
management of the nation’s lighthouses in 1939. Gray’s image was
immortalized in the September 22, 1945, cover illustration of the Saturday Evening Post; the painting by Stevan Dohanos portrayed the keeper tending the lawn near the base of the lighthouse.
Howard
“Bob” Gray, seen here in the kitchen in the keeper’s house, was the
keeper at West Quoddy Head Light 1934-52. Courtesy of the West Quoddy
Head Light Keepers Association. | Gray was fondly remembered in the publication 200 Years of Lubec History
as a “sturdy, friendly man in shirtsleeves—even on a winter day.” It
was said that Gray kept the lighthouse and fog signal building so clean
you could eat off the floor, and he always had a welcoming smile for
visitors. He was happy to give impromptu tours, and often invited
visitors in for a cup of tea.
During World War II, Gray’s
daughters, Dorothy and Carolyn, and some friends found what appeared to
be a bomb in the surf at a nearby beach. They put the bomb in the back
seat of Carolyn’s old Chevy and drove it home, over numerous bumps and
potholes, to show their father. Gray told his children not to touch the
bomb or to move the car, and he immediately phoned Washington.
Luckily,
as Dorothy Gray Doble-Meyer explained in an article in Lighthouse Digest, it turned out the bomb wasn’t active; it was a German-made decoy. |
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This U.S. Postage stamp depicted
West Quoddy Head Light with 12 instead of its actual 15 stripes. |
The last Coast Guard keeper at West Quoddy Head before its
1988 automation was Malcolm Rouse. Asked by the Boston Globe
what he thought of automation, Rouse responded:
What I think you can't print. . . . It's the best duty
a man can have for being with your family. I'm up when that sunshine
hits here -- it's the first place it hits -- and oh, I'll miss
that -- it sure is beautiful. It makes a pretty picture.
Click here to hear Malcolm
Rouse, last Coast Guard keeper at West Quoddy Head Light.
Lubec resident Maurice Babcock,Jr., whose father was the last
civilian keeper of Boston Light, said:
It's like losing a species of animal or plant. Once it's
gone, it's gone. All we'll have is a tower down there run by
computer chips.
Malcolm Rouse's wife, Carol, added, "It's a whole way
of life that is being put aside." In 2004, the Campbell Construction Company was contracted by the Coast
Guard to restore the lantern, at a cost of $176,000. The work included
the replacement of some corroded parts of the lantern, the replacement
of the lantern glass, and the removal of all lead paint. Drain spouts
in the form of gargoyles (right) that had been removed many years earlier were
replicated and installed, nearly returning the lighthouse close to its
original appearance.
Michael Cyr of Saco Bay Castings recreated the
gargoyles using an original piece at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in
Rockland. |  |
- U.S. Coast Guard photo
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The lighthouse grounds are now part of Quoddy Head State Park.
In 1998, under the Maine Lights Program, the station became the
property of the State of Maine. The light itself is still maintained
by the Coast Guard as an active aid to navigation.
A local group, the West
Quoddy Head Light Keepers Association, has formed to
enhance the experience of visitors to West Quoddy Head Light
with exhibits and displays. A seasonal visitor center is now
open in the former keeper's house.
The grounds are open to the public and trails through the
park wind along the shore and past the lighthouse.
Several species of whales can sometimes be seen offshore and
bald eagles nest in the area. A visit to West Quoddy Head is
well worth the trip.
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- The cast iron stairs inside the tower
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- Displays inside the visitor center
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- What's wrong with this picture? Nothing.
Whenever the stripes on West Quoddy Head Light are repainted,
a coat of gray primer goes on before the red stripes. This photo,
courtesy of Michelle Lemay and Keith Vachon, was taken while
the lighthouse was being repainted in September 2003.
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- A look inside the third-order Fresnel
lens from below
Keepers: (This
list is a work in progress. If you have any information on the keepers
of this lighthouse, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at nelights@gmail.com.
Anyone copying this list onto another web site does so at their own
risk, as the list is always subject to updates and corrections.) Thomas Dexter (1808-1813); Peter Godfrey
(1813-1839); Alfred Godfrey (1839-1842); Ebenezer Wormell (c.
1840s-50s); William Coggins (?-1856); David Joy (assistant, c.
1850s); Loring Leavitt (assistant, 1861-1867); Albert H. Godfrey
(assistant, 1857-1861); William Godfrey (1856-1860); Loring A.
Leavitt (assistant, 1861-1867); Richard Richardson (1860-1861);
George A. Case (1861-1877); Lowell Chase (assistant, 1867-1878);
Daniel Thayer (1877-1879); Joseph Huckins (assistant, 1878-1880);
Henry M. Godfrey (1879-1882); Garrison Crowell (assistant, 1880-1882);
William Fanning (1882-1886); Walter B. Mowry (assistant, 1882-1886);
Alvin Eldrige (assistant, 1886-1887); John Connors (1886-1890);
Henry M. Godfrey (assistant, 1887-1889); George W. Sabin (assistant,
1889-1890); John W. Guptill (1890-1899); Irwin Young (1890-1893);
Edward L. Horn (assistant, 1893-1895); Edwin L. Eaton (assistant,
1895-1900); Fred M. Robbins (assistant, 1900-1901); Warren A.
Murch (1899-1905); Herbert Robinson (assistant, 1905-1907); Eugene
C. Ingalls (assistant, 1907-1912); Leo Allen (assistant, 1912-?);
Ephraim N. Johnson (assistant 1901-1905, principal keeper 1905-1931);
Ralph Temple Crowley (assistant? c.?1915?); Arthur Robie Marston
(assistant, c. 1920s); Eugene N. Larrabee (c. 1935); Nelson Geel
(?); Frank Mitchell (?); Almon Mitchell (1909-1911); Hoyt Cheney
(asst., c. 1950); Howard "Bob" Gray (1934-1952); Alex
Sneddon (Coast Guard, c. 1952); Don Ashby (Coast Guard, c. 1953);
Robert W. Brooks (Coast Guard Fireman First Class, c. early 1950s);
Pat Stevens Bradisport (Summer 1956 Officer in Charge, Coast
Guard); Paul Kessler (Coast Guard EN1, 1956); Russell Reilly
(Coast Guard, c. 1960-1961); Dave Hardman (Coast Guard EN2, c.
1960-1961); Howard Johnson (Coast Guard SN, 1960-1962); John
W. Willmott (c.1959-1961?, Coast Guard assistant/engineer); Stephen
H. Rogers (December 1963, Coast Guard); Bruce Keene (1962-1964,
Coast Guard); John Wiley Grandey II (Coast Guard, 1963-1964);
Richard Copeland (1965, Coast Guard); Thomas Keene (1967, Coast
Guard); Richard "Gary" Craig (Coast Guard, 1968-1969);
Clifton Scofield (1974-1978, Coast Guard); Robert Marston (1975,
Coast Guard); Paul Latour (Coast Guard, 1980); George Eaton (1978-1982,
Coast Guard); Owen Gould (1982-1984, Coast Guard); John Richardson
(1984-1988, Coast Guard); Malcolm Rouse (Coast Guard, 1988).
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